January... the run down...

Rachel here.  WE'RE ALIVE!  HEY Y'ALL!  After a ridiculous amount of peer pressure... okay really it was just from the g-parents... WE'RE BAAAACK!  We were homeless living in a hotel in Bristol with Bryan out of town, we moved into our house, I attempted to unpack from said move while said husband was out of town during the weeks and home on weekends, and had no internet access for about a month and a half.  Throw a broken computer in there with lost pictures, and here we are nearly 2 months later.  I'll attempt to get you all caught up on the happenings of our happily ever after living family. :)  And go...

 

So we have this cute little baby... who sadly isn't so little anymore.



 Oh... there are these two nuggets as well.  God they're cute aren't they?

 Oh the purple mouth.  For anyone who's interested... I battled, but I'm still not convinced, yeast on one of my baby feeders for over 3 months.  It hurt like hell every time I tried to feed poor little Berks... like I was crying hurt.  It was awful.  I saw the doctor, I was on every med possible, I tried Gentian Violet (hence the purple lips) 3 times... nothing worked.  I finally cut out two feedings (she gets 4) on the right side, and that seemed to alleviate the issues at hand.  I completely healed (or so I thought), so I've been in the process of re-boosting my milk supply.  I've since noticed the issue coming back, so I'm currently in the weaning process of poor butter bean... she's not a fan.  Bum ,bum, bum.

 We had Christmas at Grandma and Grandaddy's.

 Ah there's that cute baby again... le sigh.

 Playing in the dirt while visiting the house.  We hadn't moved at this point.

 I mean seriously?  C.U.T.E.

Reese spent her own money and got herself an Easy Bake Oven.  Her biggest fan... Emma Grace. :)



 We got the mother load of all snow storms.  It snowed over 7 inches in 4-5 hours.  It was beautiful!  And we managed to maintain power to boot!

 Hi guys!

 We played in that snow for days.  The girls had a blast... Daddy may have as well.

 May I eat your cheeks?

 Even Berkie hung out in it for a while.

 Gotta love the dollar section at Target.  These wigs managed to keep our spirits high while we were hanging out with Daddy out of town... homeless.

 FINALLY... we moved... into the new house!  We are totally smitten.  There are still boxes, but they are our boxes... in our house... so we couldn't be happier.

 Oh and the Berkster turned 9 months old!

At this point sweet Baby Berkley had only gained a pound since her 6 month appointment... weighing in around 16 lbs.  She still wasn't eating purees regularly... life was crazy.  I was having boob problems... we're lucky she didn't starve to death.  We managed to QUICKLY get her on a schedule, and she's been pleasantly plump ever since.  Poor thing spent the first month in the new house sleeping in our closet.  In our defense... it's pretty big. :)  We had a hard time finding her window treatments and the screws to her crib.  All is well once again though. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment of "Rachel's attempt to get the elders of her back." ;)  It feels good to be back!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

... or perhaps Kansas was EXACTLY where we were last night. Rachel here. Last night the girls and I were hiding from tornadoes under our stairs into the wee hours of this morning. (Sexy pic huh? Muahahaha! Let's everyone take a deep breath... the Budweiser boxes are not full... they were at one time, but they are GREAT storage boxes... for realsies.)

Don't worry... Bryan was with us via Skype. Oy Vey! To be perfectly honest, the weather was yucky... we were in the path... and got lucky. In fact Bryan saw WAY MORE ACTION, sadly, than we did... while he was on the computer with us trying to keep me calm. He's a saint. For real. This entire predicament has only spawned more tornado obsession from Reese. Today she only painted pictures of the "spinny tomatoes." I'm not sure if I should feed into this learning opportunity or not... I'm afraid the girl is going to have nightmares and need therapy. Ahhhh... this is the story of our lives. :)

Happy L.O.V.E. Day!

Rachel here. We had one of the nicest Valentine's Days ever this year. Bryan's mom and dad were nice enough to take the girls Saturday afternoon and for the night, so Bryan and I could pretend we didn't have kids for a few hours. :) We went to a quaint little theater in Roanoke to see "Black Swan"... the only place we could find that was playing it in the area. I liked it... Bryan was overwhelmed. :) We then headed home to go out for Mexican and downtown for a couple of drinks. It was a throwback to our old lives, and it was lovely.

While we were pretending we weren't old, the girls were wrapping a special gift they worked on with Grandma and Grandaddy...

It was sweet.

Today we celebrated in very small ways. Aren't Reese's Valentines for her classmates adorable?! She's obsessed with the pet fish in the classroom, so when I stumbled upon these online, I knew Reese would love them. I made the overall form, but she decorated the faces, and believe me... some of them turned out hysterically adorable! They decorated their own english muffin pizzas at school today and exchanged valentines as part of their party. Reese went to timeout for kicking leaves repeatedly outside... that's pretty much all I could get out of her. :) Reese, Emma Grace, and I woke up to beautiful flowers (the girls got little pots, and I got a beautiful bouquet of roses) and heart shaped pancakes. Daddy was very sweet to us. The day was filled with lots of heart shaped food, kisses, milk dyed pink, and I love yous.It ended with the girls chatting with Daddy on the computer. We finally got our cameras up and running in hopes it would help with some of Reese's behavior. Last week was PHENOMENAL! Reese was very easy to read, easy to calm, and it was awesome. Bryan came home from being out of town on Friday, it was time to put Reese to bed, and literally all hell broke loose. We think she's worried about Daddy not being home when she wakes up in the morning... she'll do anything and say anything to not have to go to sleep when Bryan is home. Hopefully being able to "see" him every night will make Fridays a little calmer for the next little bit until we get through busy season. We love her so much, so any little thing we can do is worth it. She's doing so great... we really couldn't be happier. :)

In the top picture Reese is giving Bryan a kiss... and in the bottom right hand corner Emma Grace is giving him a fist bump. :) I think it was a success!